Fwd: Followup re W3C & BCI

Hi - I had removed the TF from my reply to Russell because I saw it as 
just coordination, but I understand the TF needs to know this, so 
passing on. Michael



-------- Forwarded Message --------
Subject:  Re: Followup re W3C & BCI
Date:  Tue, 16 Aug 2022 11:06:53 -0400
From:  Michael Cooper <cooper@w3.org>
To:  Russell Galvin <russell@blissymbolics.org>, Janina Sajka 
<janina@rednote.net>
CC:  APA Chairs <group-apa-chairs@w3.org>



-public-adapt +group-apa-chairs to move coordination to administrative 
channel

Hi Russell - I've been looking into how to structure the W3C and Bliss 
interchange, and have some thoughts to continue conversation. I'll go 
into strategic topics of how we work together, and technical topics on 
how we produce and maintain the registry.

# Strategic

We had talked about doing a Memorandum of Understanding. When I explored 
that with W3C management I found that this approach is less common than 
I had thought, and is mainly for complex circumstances. The core issue 
is, how do we establish and document that W3C has the right to publish 
content from Blissymbolics? A few options came up:

  * If Blissymbolics were a W3C Member
    <https://www.w3.org/Consortium/membership> organization, this would
    be automatic, as the contributor agreement allows W3C to publish
    anything contributed. This is the ideal path from W3C's perspective,
    but I don't know if it is realistic for your organization.
  * If Blissymbolics is not a W3C Member, it can document its agreement
    in an archived email message. In fact you did so in January 2021
    <https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Group/group-apa-chairs/2021Jan/0026.html>
    (yikes, the machine moved slowly!) - that link is only visible to
    the APA leadership but may be sufficient.
  * Another option that came up would be co-publishing the document,
    something like this example
    <https://www.w3.org/TR/2020/NOTE-htr-20201105/>. I think that might
    be a more complicated path, but wanted to see if you want to explore
    that.

# Technical

There are some basic requirements we each have:

  * W3C needs to be able to access, store, and update the content in a
    manner that allows it to produce and publish the registry.
  * Bliss needs to be able to maintain the content, make it available to
    W3C, make updates and trigger republications of the registry.

For each organization, we need the tools and procedures that support 
this to work even if all of us now in the discussion are no longer involved.

I think a look at your data source will help me to make a recommendation 
about how we can do this. If you can give me read access to the Google 
sheet you're using, I will make a preliminary proposal on how we could 
manage the interchange. You can use cooper@w3.org for the access.

Let me know what you think on both the strategic and technical fronts.

Michael

On 2022-08-01 2:53 p.m., Russell Galvin wrote:
> Hi Janina,
>
> Yes, by all means please send us an agreement to sign. I have 
> discussed this with the BCI board and there was a very positive response.
>
> I agree that the PDF is probably not the preferred format for the 
> reference document. For various reasons - which I can go over in 
> detail if you like - CSV is also not ideal.
>
> We do maintain a spreadsheet file that refers by ID to the symbols 
> which are physically kept on storage media. For the last couple of 
> years we have been using Google Workspace as our shared work 
> environment with the symbols being displayed in a Sheets document 
> using the image() function to reference the symbols by URI from 
> blissymbolics.net which works well. It's also easy to change the 
> format of the displayed symbol by just changing which version that is 
> referenced. No need to run a macro to physically load all the symbols 
> into the document at once. But, it should be no problem to generate 
> self-contained Excel docs like that if you prefer as we have done it 
> in the past.
>
> Yes, I am available to work on the registry specification. Not on a 
> full time basis but I should have sufficient time available to do what 
> is needed. I have not been attending the Monday meetings as they seem 
> to be of a more general nature but I see you discussed BCI's 
> involvement with the registry today.
>
> Best regards,
>
> Russell
>
> On 01/08/2022 9:32 a.m., Janina Sajka wrote:
>> Dear Russell:
>>
>> I'm following up with you regarding the advancement of the WAI-Adapt
>> Content Module 1.0 to Candidate Recommendation Status in the W3C
>> process.[1]
>>
>> The WAI-Adapt Task Force of APA believes we're ready to advance and
>> we've initiated the process with the W3C Director, as W3C policy
>> requires.
>>
>> There are just a few concerns the Director has expressed which we need
>> to resolve to move forward. We believe you can help resolve them, which
>> is why I'm writing you at this time.
>>
>> 1.) We need to exchange some kind of formal understanding document
>> that would keep the BCI and W3C attorneys happy. I suspect we have no
>> real disagreements, it's just an 'i' we need to dot, and a 't' to cross,
>> as it were.
>>
>> 2.) The Director suggests we normatively reference the BCI PDF index
>> of concepts, and we could do so, but we suspect that's not the most
>> accessible version of that table. We note, for example, that you also
>> maintain it in Excel. That would be significantly more accessible, and
>> something we'd prefer to PDF--until such time as our W3C Registry spec
>> takes over this feature function. But, an even more accessible version
>> might be CSV. Is that a practical possibility?
>>
>> 3.) As we move this module to CR, we're hoping to get to work
>> writing the registry specification. We're hoping we can conclude that
>> specification in a matter of a few months, but we'd very much need your
>> help on that. Is it likely you could be available to us as we work on a
>> registry specification through the remainder of 2022? The ideal
>> situation would be to have the registry specification finished before we
>> advance the Content Module beyond CR.
>>
>> Trusting this note finds you well and looking forward to effecting this
>> long awaited work with you,
>>
>> Janina
>>
>>
>